Off-Season/Pre-Summer Training Journal

[stavrog1]

You may have noticed that I'm new to this board and only had a few posts, but looking at all these journals is making me want to do one, so here it goes!

Profile:
Name - Steve
Age - 18 (19 in June)
Height - 5ft 11"
Weight - 92kg
BF % -
Callipers = 16-20%
BIA - 16%

Goals - Maintain muscle mass, fat loss, tone up

Worth mentioning that for the next 4 weeks I'll be using my home gym so a few exercises have been modified so I can do them.

Been training regularly since January this year and starting a new programme on Monday, here it is:

Monday:
Bench Press
Russian Twists (Weighted)
Flies
Crunches (Weighted)
Skull-crushers
Dips
Plank (FB - FITT ball)
Dumbbell Kickbacks
SA Triceps Extension

Tuesday:
Squats
Dead-lifts
Natural GHR (Glute/Ham Raises)
Romanian Dead-lifts
Lunges

Wednesday:
Wide LPD
Towel LPD
Crunches (C)
Oblique Crunches
Hyperextensions
Bent-Over Rows (3 sets x 3reps of 6RM, 5RM, 3RM followed by...)
DB Reverse Flies (1 set of 14RM followed by...)
Bent-Over Rows (1 set of 3reps of 3RM again)

Friday:
Arnold Press
Lateral Raises
Shrugs
Barbell Press
Reverse Flies
Frontal Raises
External Rotations
Rotations (this and exercise above are rotator cuff exercises)

Saturday:
Jack Knives (FB)
Knee Raises
Oblique Crunches
Side Bends

Sunday:
DB Preacher Curls
Barbell Wrist Curls (Palms Up)
Narrow EZ-Bar Curls
Barbell Wrist Curls (Palms Down)
EZ-Bar 21s

Cardio will be done Monday, Thursday and Saturday. 2 sessions of either cross-trainer or cycling (not stationary) and 1 session of HIIT.

Now, one question before I start...what sort of rep range should I be doing? I have set out to do varying rep ranges for each muscle group, such as 6reps on DB preacher curls, EZ-Bar curls 8 reps and ez-bar 21s.
should I stick to set reps like 5, 8 or higher...?

Thanks. More to come starting from Monday

[Monkfish]

That's a pretty complicated system mate. Few comments that might help:

You've got nine different types of ab exercise, This is too much and would drop the ab day and put deadlifts in there. One or two ab exercises is ample if you're doing big compounds.

Deads and squats are the foundation of your training so split them apart, give them a lot of focus and recover fully before/after them.

Split each workout so that it's compound first, big muscle specialisation second and smaller muscle specialisation last. Eg, Monday you're doing dips after skull-crushers, this will likely mean your triceps are fried and give out before you really engage your chest on the dips. If you hit some big benc pressing, monster dips and incline fly's then you wont need so many sets to finish your tri's off as they'll have been working hard already. Same goes for back and bi's etc.

I'd strip out most of the small and excess exercises and focus on squat, dead, bench, standing overhead press, pullup, bent over row. If you want to get ripped by summer drop things like the two different wrist curls, tricep kickback, ab work and focus on a big lift involving lots of muscles.

With what you've got I'd probably do something like this:

Monday:
Squats
Natural GHR (Glute/Ham Raises)
Calf raises
Lunges


Tuesday:
Bench Press
Dips
Flies
Skull-crushers
Plank (FB - FITT ball)


Wednesday:
Rest


Friday:
Deadlifts
Bent-Over Rows
Wide LPD
DB Preacher Curls
EZ-Bar Curls


Saturday:
Standing overhead press
Arnold Press
Reverse Flies
Rotator cuff exercises
Weighted crunches


Sunday:
Rest


Three working sets for each (sack-up and push yourself hard!), eight to twelve reps a set, nail your diet and you'll see definite improvements.

Hope that helps, shout if not bud.

[stavrog1]

that's really helpful mate, cheers.

Quote

Three working sets for each (sack-up and push yourself hard!), eight to twelve reps a set, nail your diet and you'll see definite improvements.

Hope that helps, shout if not bud.

just the three for compound exercises? I normally work for 4 sets on BP, dead-lifts and squats...

why no lateral or front raises? I heard it is important to not just do presses for shoulders but do exercises that include the whole movement - abduction etc?

also - just to let you know, hadn't finalised the organisation of my days when I posted so yes it was jumbled and knew about the compound exercises before the isolation.

[dope540]

when you train hard, 3 sets is all you need. some advance techniques like the 'breathing squat' requires you to do 20 at least parallel squats with something like your 5 rep max. one set of that is enough.

front deltoid gets hit enough when doing chest work and shoulder presses. lateral deltoid gets hit enough with standard shoulder presses.

[stavrog1]

Quote

when you train hard, 3 sets is all you need. some advance techniques like the 'breathing squat' requires you to do 20 at least parallel squats with something like your 5 rep max. one set of that is enough.

front deltoid gets hit enough when doing chest work and shoulder presses. lateral deltoid gets hit enough with standard shoulder presses.

Thanks for all that .

Like the look of your programme, changed a few things for me personally. Will post up my first workout on Monday!

[Monkfish]

Exactly as Dope suggests, all that chest work will hammer your anterior delts, and the arnold pressing/OHP etc. will take car of the laterals, You won't feel like you're lacking in exercises for them!

Good luck with the first workout, post it up when you're done.

[dope540]

no problem

[Matt Strong]

In regards to fat loss theres way too much volume there.

Something like a 3x a week split with lower volume on the lifts will likely suit you better.

I expect good things here as I'm from Exeter myself

[Monkfish]

Too much volume for fat loss? This is very similar to my training programme and I've lost 12lb in the last threee weeks.

The diet calories and macro's are important, however there's no reason at all to suggest that you couldn't lose weight with this setup - unless you're talking about the original layout?

[Matt Strong]

Don't get me wrong IMO creating the deficit and adequate protein intake is the key - as I have been saying for ages. However I think that in a large deficit (if he has one) that it is quite easy to run yourself into the ground with high volume. This has been recommended by many others (lyle mcdonald, martin berkhan, alan aragon etc).

Congratulations of the fat loss - 12lb is a lot in 3 weeks. What diet set up are you following?